Bitcoin Mining pool Concentration

[mandar_sn]

Guys, first of all i am newbie so please don't consider i am against any of these pools. I was using F2pool for around 8-9months last year.

There is a question thats bothering me last few days, its about the 51% attack.. Main 3-4 pools are all from China F2pool, Antminer, BW and BTCC. From some previous discussions on the forum Antminer and F2pool has some sort of relationship and most likely others may have too.

Anyways China is total authoritarian state and if they want they can take control of these pools without any issue. Isn't this an issue that 60-70% of pooled mining is from china? they have been trying to stop chinese money leave country anyways. Let alone the state, If just the 2 pools decide to combine the mining power they could cause an attack. Should the pools be more spread out regional wise?

[lucsky]

Guys, first of all i am newbie so please don't consider i am against any of these pools. I was using F2pool for around 8-9months last year.

There is a question thats bothering me last few days, its about the 51% attack.. Main 3-4 pools are all from China F2pool, Antminer, BW and BTCC. From some previous discussions on the forum Antminer and F2pool has some sort of relationship and most likely others may have too.

Anyways China is total authoritarian state and if they want they can take control of these pools without any issue. Isn't this an issue that 60-70% of pooled mining is from china? they have been trying to stop chinese money leave country anyways. Let alone the state, If just the 2 pools decide to combine the mining power they could cause an attack. Should the pools be more spread out regional wise?

Hey, do not set to newbie because you made an excellent point!

It turns out that 80% of the Bitcoin miners are concentrated in the hands of very few people. This is a concentration of Bitcoin manufacturing process, which is not healthy for crypto. It goes completely against the decentralized process that the philosophy of Bitcoin and Blockchain preaches! Moreover, all this is in Chinese territory, a country that still has many traces of communism.

[franky1]

china has over 1 billion people..

assuming that they are all in it together is 4x worse then saying that all americans are connected like a hive-mind all colluding together

lets say there were 3 pools in america.. would you consider them automatically colluding simply because of the country.
or would you say that they are separated by different states, counties, cities, companies and that being in the US is meaningless..

the main reason everyone is hating on china, is for the same reason as why trump talks about china so much.. indirect racism.

the real funny part is that its mainly the americans that are screaming blue murder about china. yet they never screamed about america a coupl years back when the majority of hash power was in america..

[topiOleg]

It turns out that 80% of the Bitcoin miners are concentrated in the hands of very few people.

A lot of people are connected to the few pools. Maybe around hundred thousand individual miners. Should  the 51% attack really happen, it would hit all the Bitcoin news and discussion places, and the individual miners would choose different pool. I dont worry this to happen though, its sure way to ruin the pool reputation and steady income.

[DashTron]

what would such an attack bring?
I think btc would immediatelly lose nearly all of its worth, so nobody has something from such an attack.

[mandar_sn]

china has over 1 billion people..

assuming that they are all in it together is 4x worse then saying that all americans are connected like a hive-mind all colluding together

lets say there were 3 pools in america.. would you consider them automatically colluding simply because of the country.
or would you say that they are separated by different states, counties, cities, companies and that being in the US is meaningless..

the main reason everyone is hating on china, is for the same reason as why trump talks about china so much.. indirect racism.

the real funny part is that its mainly the americans that are screaming blue murder about china. yet they never screamed about america a coupl years back when the majority of hash power was in america..

ok, i was afraid this might happen... please lets start to pit one against others. I only asked this question because there is a relationship between 2 of the biggest pools and they have 51% of mining share.

It turns out that 80% of the Bitcoin miners are concentrated in the hands of very few people.

A lot of people are connected to the few pools. Maybe around hundred thousand individual miners. Should  the 51% attack really happen, it would hit all the Bitcoin news and discussion places, and the individual miners would choose different pool. I dont worry this to happen though, its sure way to ruin the pool reputation and steady income.

Wouldn't that be too late? Also how many of us actually check the IP address of the pool mining server. Dont most of us use DNS name? If they point to same IP, how many days will pass before anyone realising that one group has majority stake.

[topiOleg]

It turns out that 80% of the Bitcoin miners are concentrated in the hands of very few people.

A lot of people are connected to the few pools. Maybe around hundred thousand individual miners. Should  the 51% attack really happen, it would hit all the Bitcoin news and discussion places, and the individual miners would choose different pool. I dont worry this to happen though, its sure way to ruin the pool reputation and steady income.

Wouldn't that be too late? Also how many of us actually check the IP address of the pool mining server. Dont most of us use DNS name? If they point to same IP, how many days will pass before anyone realising that one group has majority stake.

It doesnt matter if someone has majority stake like the top two pools if they are really tightly affilated, but if they actually do the 51% attack to reverse the transaction. It would be actually detected quite fast, as they would probably need to orphan at least 3 blocks (most services need more than one confirmation for larger sums), and even with 75% hashrate this race who get longest chain against remaining 25% with already 3+ blocks could take hour or more.

Too late? You cant never prevent it anyway, the 51% attack can come suddenly out of nowhere as well.

[Hazir]

Arguments of 'centralized mining pools' and that 'majority of hash power focused in Chinese hands' have been discussed many times before.
And to address your concern Op. It doesn't matter where are mining pools located.
As I don't think that Bitcoin at this point is taking part in economic war between Western and Eastern societies.
Additionally, 51% attack is uniquely to happen because it will ruin bitcoin reputation for being a trustless monetary system.
After something like this bitcoin would be DONE FOR. It would be the end. Why Chinese miners would want commit financial suicide like that?

[raphma]

Should the pools be more spread out regional wise?

yes, they should... but how could anyone force that? unfortunately china have cheaper energy and good internet so they got the perfect environment.

[Quickseller]

Yes the top 4 pools are all located in the same country, and yes these four pools currently collectively account for ~71% of the current mining hashpower. Yes these four pools all have a fairly close relationship with each-other.

I would say that it is almost certain that the pools will not collude voluntarily to attack the network because doing so would result in lower fee revenue, and would reduce the value of the coins they have previously earned/made. Many of these four pools also have major businesses that are Bitcoin related, and attacking the network would result in damage to these businesses' reputations, ability to do business, as well as their future earnings.

Being that these four pools are all based out of China, and that the Chinese government is not exactly friendly to the ideals that Bitcoin is based on, one could say that it would be possible that the Chinese government could use the threat of force and/or actual force to get these pools to attack the network. This kind of attack is unlikely to be successful, in part because these pools all have operations outside of China, so there is no guarantee that the Chinese government would even be able to force the pools' hands if they wanted to.  Also, if the pools were to start acting in a way that is damaging to the network, then miners would quickly move their equipment elsewhere, essentially removing these pools' ability to attack the network.